


The Drowntown Express

by DesertScribe



Category: Blood Drive (TV)
Genre: Canon Typical Weirdness, Corporations Trying To Force Christmas Cheer Where It Doesn't Belong, Gen, Lovecraftian Elements, Spiders, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/pseuds/DesertScribe
Summary: Question:  Why didn't we see any of the action from Race Day Four, only Grace and Arthur sneaking away from the afterparty?Answer:  Because that footage was being saved to make a Blood Drive Christmas Special.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Drowntown Express

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naemi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naemi/gifts).



Race Day Four begins in Ogden, Utah. Last night, Grace had been too focused on getting from Steel City to the finish line to pay much attention to their surroundings beyond making sure she didn't hit anything, and now that the sun is up and she can look around at her leisure, she decides that she didn't miss much. They're in yet another vacant lot framed by the crumbling ruins of abandoned warehouses. The only difference from the starting point of Race Day Three or Race Day One is that it looks like they're only on the edge of an abandoned industrial part of town instead of right in the middle of one.

It's uncomfortably warm, as is to be expected from a June afternoon in the desert. There's not a cloud in the sky. A thin haze of pollution tints the air orange down around the horizon, but it offers no protection from the sun. As is becoming routine for the Blood Drive, more than half the participants are still hungover from the previous night's Mayhem Party, but the racers squint against the brightness, mutter curses aimed at their pounding headaches, and assemble promptly to begin the next leg of the race when called to, because the alternative is death.

There is a fanfare of music, and a gratuitous burst of flames spew out of the pipes lining the top of the stage, and then Julian Slink struts out from between the curtains and croons, "Good afternoon, Blood Drivers," into the microphone with his usual smarmy cheer. He's buttoned up in another outfit featuring long pants, a coat, waistcoat, a high collared shirt, and an ascot, as if it isn't over 100°F in the shade.

It makes Grace wonder if he just came from somewhere with really good air-conditioning or if the man just straight up doesn't have any sweat glands. She doesn't have time to dwell on it, though, because of course he can't send them off for their daily dose of carnage without getting to enjoy the sound of his own voice first. As usual, the news he has to share isn't anything she wants to hear, but she knows she can't afford to ignore it, either.

"We're about to begin day four of our race," Slink continues, "and I'm sure all of you feel like you've gotten the hang of things by now, like you have things all figured out. You're falling into a routine, maybe even getting complacent and thinking that all you need to do is keep going like you have been and maybe it'll be enough to keep you alive to 'til end. Well, you know what I say to all that? I say fuck your routine, and fuck your complacency. They're boring and have no place in my dramatic masterpiece. With that in mind..." He pauses, probably to draw out the suffering of his captive audience.

It's just the racers listening to him, not the entourage of weirdos who follow the race from location to location like groupies and have the luxury of skipping the boring parts like these, so no one bothers to cheer him on. Grace and Arthur exchange matching eye rolls and unhappy looks, as do many other members of the Blood Drive. None of that is enough to stop Slink from continuing.

"With that in mind," he repeats, stroking the microphone stand with jagged fingernails, "I've decided to shake things up and raise the difficulty for today by taking away your driving directions. Your navigation systems will show your location in relation to your destination but not how to get there. There's no fixed course to follow, but that also means there's no way to be certain you haven't chosen a route which will land you in last place and an early grave. Think of it as orienteering, Blood Drive style. In keeping with that theme, today's race isn't just a one and done. Instead, you'll first find your way to a control point, and only upon arriving there will your GPS tell you where the finish line will be. To help maintain the surprise, racers will only be able to see the positions of cars who are on the same half of the race as they are. Also," Slink adds with a black-toothed grin, "it's sinkhole season in these parts, so be prepared for possible road closures and other infrastructure failures more or less anywhere and everywhere."

Grace snorts in disbelief. "I thought sinkhole season was only a Florida thing," she mutters under her breath.

Arthur seems equally disbelieving, but for a slightly different reason. "I thought sinkhole season was a myth."

"Unfortunately," Slink continues, "our corporate sponsors have decided that if I get to change the rules for the day, then so do they. Specifically, today's race won't be shared via closed circuit TV, but don't go thinking that your cameras will be turned off. No, everything will be recorded just like it always is, but instead of being broadcast live, the footage will be saved to use in a planned Blood Drive Christmas Special. Yes, yes, I know, Christmas Creep is terrible, and nobody likes to see corporations artificially starting the Christmas season earlier and earlier every year. To help get you lot in the mood to celebrate Christmas in July--"

"Christmas in June!" Rasher calls from the edge of the stage.

"Santa Slink has presents for each and every one of you," Slink continues on, with only a brief irritated glance in the direction of his tattooed flunky to acknowledge the correction. "If you'll kindly look inside your vehicles, you'll find packages with specially selected festive accessories for you to wear. And before anyone decides not to embrace the holiday spirit," he growls darkly into the microphone, "be aware that each item is tagged with a sensor linked to the ones implanted at the bases of your skulls. Until you cross today's finish line, each person's gift is like a new official team mate, with all the usual consequences of being separated. Leave your piece of holiday cheer behind or even choose not to wear it, and I'll pop your head like a Christmas cracker. Merry Christmas!"

"He's joking," Grace says. "He has to be."

"I don't think so," Arthur says unhappily, pointing inside the Camaro to a pair of boxes gift-wrapped in blood red paper with black ribbons, which Grace is certain weren't there before the asshole on stage started talking. The other racers around them seem to be making similar discoveries. With some trepidation, Grace and Arthur open their respective boxes. Grace gets a red velvet bodice with white fur edging and a matching Santa hat. Arthur gets a headband with brown felt antlers and a leather harness. At least he hoped it was leather; knowing Heart, it was probably made of people.

Everyone else also gets assorted Christmas costume pieces. To one side of them, Domi and Cliff got matching elf hats and pointy ears. On the other side, the Gentleman and the Scholar get matching ugly Christmas sweaters, which makes the Scholar smile and the Gentleman visibly seethe. A little further down the way, Rib Bone gets what appears to be a furry green Grinch onesie, while Caligula gets a single tiny fake antler to tie on her head.

Grace and Arthur don't have time to make note of what the remaining racers get, because as soon as every box has been opened, Slink shouts, "Ready, set, go!" without any additional warning. None of the racers are even in their cars yet. Most are still busy putting on their surprise Christmas accessories. It's a mad scramble to get started. Half the racers throw on their items, jump in their cars, and immediately drive off. The other half run into the nearest street and start grabbing random people to take with them for when they run out of fuel out in the desert.

Grace shoves her stupid hat onto her head and shrugs into the bodice without tying it, and jumps into the driver seat, but Arthur grabs her hand before she can turn the key in the ignition, saying, "Wait, Grace, we need to be smart about this. We can't just pick a direction at random and then course correct later. Besides, with the way that Slink likes to play at being smarter than everyone, he was probably giving some kind of a hint when he mentioned sinkholes and other dangers. We've already run into enough bullshit along this race. Let's not ignore the one time we get an actual warning beforehand." Somehow he has managed to put on his antlers and harness without Grace even noticing. Maybe being a cop means he already has lots of practice putting on stupid outfits in a hurry.

Grace gives Arthur an exasperated look. "Warning us about bad roads ahead is a pretty useless hint."

"Not when we're standing right next to a place we can go ask for specifics," Arthur argues, pointing to the far side of the street which runs along one side of the vacant lot Slink has gathered them in. There, looking almost as rundown as the nearby warehouses, stands a branch office of the Utah Department of Transportation.

"Okay, we can take five minutes, but if whoever's in there tries to give us the runaround because they're bored and don't have anything better to do, I'm stabbing them and throwing them in the engine."

They use the navigation system to locate their first destination and mark it on Grace's Utah road map. Then they get back out of the car and go into the UDOT building to ask what the fastest way to get a car there is.

The woman working the front desk raises a questioning eyebrow at Grace and Arthur when she sees their Christmas-y bits of attire, but keeps any comments she might have about it to herself. Instead, she politely and professionally listens to the racers' questions and looks up where all the reported sinkholes are and marks them on the map, because apparently sinkhole season is a very real thing in Utah thanks to all the extra well drilling which everyone has been doing to compensate for the aquifers being pumped dry after years of drought in addition to the usual fracking. By the time she's done, there are a lot of red Xs all over the place, and it looks like all the necessary detours would add up to well over a hundred miles regardless of whether they take a north or south route around Great Salt Lake. The day's race rules would allow them to go off road if they wanted to try driving around the collapsed sections of road or even cutting across the desert as a shortcut, but the Camaro isn't a particularly high ground clearance vehicle, and they had found a replacement spare tire in Steel City, but if they blew out two while they were out in the desert it would cost them their lives long before dehydration became an issue, so they don't want to risk it.

"Damn," Grace mutters, "there's no way the fuel we have would last us that far, let alone wherever we're going after that." Then something catches her eye. "What's this line going across the lake over here?" she says and points to the line in question.

"That's a railroad causeway, and don't even think about it, Honey," the UDOT worker says, shaking her head. "A few people desperate for a shortcut to save gas have driven across it. A lot of them got hit by freight trains. After the last derailment, Union Pacific set up guard posts at either end to shoot anyone who tries." She pauses to add a red X with her marker to either end of the causeway just like she had done to mark each of the known sinkholes. "If they don't get you before you can get on at one end, they'll radio ahead to their buddies to gather reinforcements so they can be certain of getting you as you come off the other side. Anything to keep the freight moving and all that."

"So we figure out a route that's still open in either direction and run the numbers to figure out which is shorter." Arthur says to Grace with a sigh. The news is disappointing but not a surprise. "It'll take a few minutes but it could save us a lot of time in the long run."

"I can save you even more time than that," the UDOT worker says. "The answer is neither. With all the road closures, the fastest route to the other side of the lake is straight across on the ferry."

"There's no ferry marked on the map," Grace says.

"How old is that map?" the UDOT worker says. "Because the ferry service just started running a few months ago, after the dredging project finished." She checked her watch. "There's one scheduled to leave in five minutes, but that one zig-zags across the lake, stopping at all the islands along the way. If you wait an hour, you can catch the one that goes straight across with only one stop in the middle, so it'll get you there sooner. When you get your tickets, ask for the Drowntown Express.

"Thanks," Grace says as she folds up her map and heads for the door, "you're a lifesaver."

Arthur adds, "Literally!"

"Any time, Honey," the UDOT worker calls to Arthur's retreating back as he quickly follows Grace out before she can put too much distance between them.

They run into Slink on their way back to the car.

"Hey, Slink," Grace calls out. "Can we really take whatever route we want, or are you going to kill us if we try to take the ferry?"

"Well, i isn't against the rules," he says, "but are you sure you can stand the agonizing wait as the boat chugs its way across a lake, your fate in some else's hands while you watch your competitors speeding along, able to change course whenever they want?"

"I think we can handle the suspense," Arthur says.

"In that case," Slink grumbles, "at least do something interesting for the cameras while you wait instead of just passively sitting around and stewing in worry over your route decision could cost you your lives. Take a walk along the beach and throw rocks at seagulls while getting swarmed by brine flies or whatever it is young lovers do these days. Oh, I know! You could go on a romantic lunch date and sample some of the local specialties this area is famous for. I recommend the crab cakes." Then he turns on his heel and leaves without waiting for a response.

"Since when is Salt Lake City famous for crab cakes?" Arthur says with a frown.

Grace shrugs. "I have no idea, but now that he mentions it, I could actually go for a meal that didn't come from the Blood Drive roach coach, and at least with crab cakes they probably can't secretly make it out of people like with hamburgers."

As soon as Grace turns the key in the ignition, Christmas music starts blasting out of the car's speakers, and no amount of hitting the buttons on the radio will make it stop.

"Okay, if this is how it's going to be all day, then taking the ferry is definitely the right choice. If we're going to die, then at least we'll die while not listening to _this_." She gives the power button one last futile stab of a finger and then grits her teeth and tries to ignore the noise in favor of driving.

It's an easy drive of a couple of miles to the edge of the Great Salt Lake and the pier where the ferry terminal was, though the gas pedal needed a lot more finesse than usual thanks to how much more potent a fuel the glimmer blood was. Since the previous ferry left just before they arrived, they're first in line to get on the next boat, which means they'll be first off on the far side. They buy their tickets, leave the Camaro parked in the loading queue, and then they wander off to take Slink's advice to find something to eat. They don't need to go far, there's a snack bar with sidewalk seating within sight of the ferry ticket office.

"Do you really think you'll need that here?" Arthur says, a look of disapproval etched across his features as he watches Grace pull her 8-ball topped gearshift knife out of its socket before she locks the car. "We're in a normal city, not out in the wastelands."

"Los Angeles is a supposedly normal city, and look at everything that goes on there. Even without any of the weirder shit, there's still ordinary muggers and car thieves to worry about," Grace says. She holds up the weapon and drums the fingers of her free hand on the 8-ball. "It's a lot harder to steal a girl's ride if you can't shift it out of Park. Besides, there's something weird about this place. Have you noticed how fishy half the people look?"

"They're probably just, I don't know, Mormons or something," Arthur says, "and after spending the past few days with the Mayhem Party anyone dressed normally is going to look weird by comparison. Mormons aren't really famous for their wild fashion choices, and Salt Lake City and the area around it is supposed to have a lot of Mormons."

"Is it? I haven't actually seen any Mormon churches or whatever they're called since we got here," Grace says, "just places that look like they might have been but their signs say they're Temples of Dagon. Plus," she adds, "I don't mean fishy as in weird. I mean literally fishy, as in looking kinda like fish. I'm pretty sure Mormonism doesn't turn your skin grayish green or make your eyes bigger or your chin start receding."

"We've seen polluted water do all that and more to Steel City, though," Arthur says thoughtfully. "Maybe that chemical spill wasn't as localized as we thought and some of it traveled all the way here, not enough to turn people into full psychotic gasoline guzzling mutants who explode in bright light but enough to turn them a little pale and fishy looking." After a pause, he adds, "We, uh, might want to watch what we drink with lunch."

"Sealed containers of imported beer only," Grace says, "nothing bottled locally. Got it." She kicks at a stone as she walks and then goes back to eyeing their surroundings suspiciously. "So how do you explain the creepy giant cobwebs that seem to be all over the buildings and trees?"

Arthur shrugs and says, "Tent caterpillar infestation?"

Before they can speculate further, they arrive at the cafe and see that it is advertising a lunch combo special of a crab cake sandwich, fries, and a drink for five dollars. Apparently Slink wasn't lying about crab cakes. Also, the crab cake combo is less than half the price of anything else on the menu, which makes them suspicious given what their stop at the Pixie Swallow Motel had taught them about the probable origins of unusually cheap protein sources.

"Are the crab cakes really made of crab?" Arthur asks the pimply and slightly fish-faced teenager standing at the counter when they walk up to place their orders.

"What else would they be made of?" the teen says with a disinterested shrug.

"I don't know," Arthur says, "maybe people?"

That gets the teen's attention, causing him to bark out a laugh seemingly against his will. "Gods, I wish," he blurts out. It takes him about half a second to realize what he just said. "I mean, that would be terrible," he hurriedly adds, "and gross, of course, _really_ gross, but at least it would be _interesting_ , you know. Nothing interesting ever happens around here."

"But how are are the crab cakes so cheap? I thought crab was expensive even before the environment went to hell everywhere."

"They're supposedly locally sourced," the teen says with another shrug.

"From where? On the way here we passed a sign by the shoreline saying the lake water is so much saltier than the ocean that nothing but bacteria and brine shrimp can live in it for very long."

"Maybe that sign was old, like, really old, from before the Scar," the teen says. "Everything turned weird after the Scar happened, sometimes even really far away from it, like everyone in my hometown deciding they wanted to leave Massachusetts and move out here instead. Maybe a bunch of crabs decided they wanted to leave wherever they were and come live here, too. I don't know, man. I just work the register for minimum wage. Do you want to get the crab cakes or not? If not, we have chicken strips for twenty dollars and hamburgers for thirty. Wait, no, never mind! I just remembered we're out of the chicken strips. If you don't want the five dollar crab cakes, we have hamburgers for thirty."

Grace and Arthur look at the teen, then at each other, then the cafe's door, which displays a now familiar sticker proclaiming that the establishment serves Kox brand meat.

"This place serves Kox meat burgers?" Arthur asks, pointing at the door.

"So the sticker says," the teen says blandly, making it obvious that his previous interest is quickly giving way to boredom once more.

"Do the crab cakes come from Kox, too?"

"Nah, I already told you, the crab cakes are locally sourced." The teen's words say that the crab cakes are local, but his tone says that Arthur is the stupidest person the teen has ever met.

"But what does that mean?"

"It means they're locally sourced," the teen says with yet another shrug. "Beyond that, I don't know, man. You could ask my manager, but he just went on break. He always says he'll only gonna be gone for twenty minutes, but usually it's more like two hours. You could come back some other time and try then?" The 'hopefully when I'm not the one on shift' at the end of that sentence is unspoken but obvious.

"Thanks, but we're in a little bit of a hurry," Grace says, elbowing Arthur in the ribs to interrupt his interrogation. She leans forward on the counter with a ten dollar bill in her fist. "We'll take two crab cake combos to go, and we'll leave you alone."

"If you say so," the teen says boredly, but his face pulls into a smile as he punches the order into the register without looking, making no effort to hide how his gaze drifts away from Grace's face and down to her chest. He blinks in confusion when he notices the fur trimmed red velvet bodice Grace is wearing over her shirt. He looks up at her face again, clearly intending to make some kind of comment about her fashion choices or possibly ask her if that is how she likes to keep her puppies warm, at which point he notices the Santa hat she is wearing. That brings him up short and causes him to instead turn toward Arthur with a 'tell me you're seeing this too' kind of a look on his slightly fish-like face, and that's when he finally notices the antlers and harness Arthur is wearing. "Did you guys lose a bet, or am I being punked? Wait, no, I'm definitely being punked, aren't I?" He grins. "Are there hidden cameras? Am I gonna be on TV? How much am I gonna get paid for this? I'm not gonna sign the waiver to let you put me on TV if I'm not gonna get paid for it."

"If anything, we're the ones being punked," Grace says, "but maybe we can make room for you to come along for the ride, if you think you're up for it." She lets her gaze drift over him in an echo of how he had been looking her moments earlier. He thinks she's checking him out. She's really sizing him to mentally estimate how much blood he has in him.

"Grace, no," Arthur says, because he always has to step in and try to save everyone, even when letting them die would help keep his own skin intact for a little while longer.

"Aw, come on, Barbie, I won't even make you watch if you don't want to."

"I said, no, Grace."

"The big Barbie doll says, 'No,'" Grace tells the teen with an exaggerated mock pout and a sigh. "I guess we'll have to wait until he gets more desperate."

"I get off work at six," the guy says as he thrusts a paper bag which presumably contains their to go order into her hands.

"I'll be waiting," Grace says with a wink as she accepts the bag.

They're out the door and halfway back to the ferry terminal, before Arthur realizes that Grace never handed over any money for the food and the teen never even asked for any.

"Seriously, Grace?"

"What?" she says as she opens the bag and peers inside.

"That food is probably going to be taken out of his paycheck," Arthur says disapprovingly.

"And thanks to you he's still probably going to be alive when it's time to collect that paycheck, instead of doing something useful with his life like providing fuel for us when we inevitably run out of Glimmer blood," Grace says, popping a French fry into her mouth. "Also, he didn't give us our drinks, so in the cosmic scheme of things I'd say he still owes us more than we owe him."

"With the ferry shortcut we can probably get all the way to today's finish line and still have fuel left to spare without adding any. Just once, wouldn't you like to go a whole day without killing anyone?"

"Not if it puts me at risk of being the one who dies instead," Grace says, "especially not today of all days, when we're just a few short hours away from getting to Kane Hill and rescuing Karma. I'm _not_ going to let you moralize me to death before I can rescue my sister."

"Okay, then think of it this way," Arthur says. "We don't know what mixing human blood with Glimmer blood will do, so we probably don't want to add new fuel," and he can't hold back the grimace of distaste as he spits out the euphemism.

"We're going to need to do it again sooner or later. It doesn't matter how much you hate it."

"I know that," Arthur says. "But," he adds, "with the ferry shortcut we can probably get all the way to today's finish line and still have fuel left to spare without adding any. No, think about it," he says when Grace looks like she wants to interrupt to tell him that he had already said that part. "Do you really want to spend all day driving around with that guy in the car with us and probably not get to kill him by the end of it? We wouldn't be able to leave him behind at the Mayhem Party while we go off to Kane Hill unless you want someone else to take him for themselves. We would have to take him with us. Do you want to introduce him to Karma, have them sit together in the backseat?"

"We could have knocked him out and thrown him in the trunk. Karma wouldn't have to even know he was there."

"Not enough room in the trunk for a person unless you get rid of your weapons and your breakdown kit," Arthur says, smiling, "not even a scrawny guy like him."

"God damn it, Barbie," Grace grumbles, "I hate it when you're right."

"So I've noticed." He unwraps his crab cake sandwich and sniffs at is suspiciously. It smells like crab cakes usually smell, and it looks more like it used to be seafood than like it might have been a person. He takes a tentative bite. He crunches through the golden outer fried crust and into the soft flaky white middle. It definitely tastes like a crab cake. Arthur had never really liked crab cakes, but after the past few days, eating this one is like taking bites of heaven. He is taking a second bite when there's a rush of air and blur of white past his head.

"Son of a bitch," Grace shouts, "that bird stole my french fry!"

Arthur looks up just in time to spot the seagull landing on the roof of the ticket office, where it where it almost mockingly gulps down Grace's french fry in a single swallow. It squawks triumphantly, but when it tries to take off again, perhaps to have a go at the larger prize of Arthur's sandwich, it finds itself entangled in the cobweb like substance coating the surface and unable to take flight. It struggles to free itself, but before it can do more than pry one foot halfway loose, a spider the size of a German Shepherd pops out of a hidden trapdoor within the web. The spider lunges at the gull, but the terror of impending doom is enough the give the gull the impetus it needs to finally wrench itself free from the web so ti can fly to safety. The spider scuttles away empty-handed, disappearing back through its trapdoor, giving Arthur and Grace a brief glimpse of a funnel of web which probably leads through a hole in the roof and into the building's attic.

"I guess now we know what the kid meant by 'locally sourced,'" Arthur says numbly, still staring at the spot where the appeared from and then vanished again. Luckily for him, the experience appears to have rattled the seagull enough that it does not take advantage of the situation to circle back and steal more of their food.

Grace takes her own sandwich out of its wrapper and stares at it thoughtfully. Then she says, "Crabs are pretty much just giant spiders that live in the ocean. I'll take that over Kox burgers any day of the week." She takes a bite of the sandwich, chews it, and swallows. "This is better than I'd expect for something that eats garbage birds," she says.

"Yeah," Arthur laughs, "I guess you're right." They stand together under a tattered awning offering meager protection from the sun, and they finish their meal without further complaint.

They get back to the ferry terminal with enough time to finish eating their food and then get back into the Camaro to drive it onto the ferry.

As soon as Grace turns on the engine, the Christmas music starts blasting out of the speakers again, but it doesn't provide enough distraction to prevent Arthur's eyes from being drawn to the GPS display showing their location in relation to the control point and the other racers who also had not reached it yet. There aren't nearly as many glowing dots on the screen as he would have liked. He wants to hope that it's just a matter of the other racers' routes taking them too far afield to show up on the display, but having missed the past hour of their progress while he was away from the car, he has no way to be certain that they haven't already reached the control point and been removed from view due to moving on to the second leg of the course.

He remembers what Slink had said about second guessing themselves about their choice to take the ferry. Arthur had been certain of the correctness of his decision at the time, but now he is beginning to have his doubts. If nothing else, he regrets thinking with his stomach so much that he failed to even suggest that maybe they should stay with the car to check their competitors' progress instead of looking for a meal they could have afforded to skip. On the other hand, maybe in appearing to obediently follow Slink's instructions to go off and do something together while they waited they reduced the chances that he might subject them to greater scrutiny later in the evening, when Grace's plan to rescue her sister would need Slink's disinterest the most.

The ferry casts off with sudden lurch of motion and then it is powering away from shore across the gently rolling waves of the Great Salt Lake. Arthur wants to get out and pace around the upper deck of the ferry to burn off some of his pent up tension, but he knows Grace wants him to stay put so they can be ready to drive off as quickly as possible when they reach the far shore. He agrees with her plan. That doesn't make staying in the Camaro for the duration of the ride any less nerve-wracking. At least the obnoxious music isn't a problem as long as the engine is off.

At one point, they ferry lurches to something resembling a stop. The forward motion ceases, but the boat continues to bob up and down like they are out in open water instead of being tied in place, and the ramp ahead of them does not drop down to let anyone drive off. Neither Arthur nor Grace can see much of the surrounding scenery from their vantage point of inside a car down on the ferry's vehicle deck, so there isn't any real way for them to know where exactly they have stopped. None of the islands on Grace's map are labeled as "Drowntown," but Arthur has a sneaking suspicion that might be more of a reference to some kind of past accident along the route rather than an official place name. That idea becomes more disconcerting when he remembers that the UDOT worker said that the route has only been in operation for a few months.

He tries not to think about it. He also tries to sit still enough not to draw Grace's ire, both to keep the peace between them and as a deliberate exercise in self control. Grace clutches the steering wheel tightly with one hand while drumming her fingernails on it with the other, but otherwise she is holding herself back as much as Arthur is.

Eventually, the ferry lurches forward again, and twenty minutes later they arrive on the western shore of the lake. Grace turns on the engine as soon as the ferry bumps against the dock fenders, and Arthur tries not to wince with the knowledge that each drop of fuel they burned brought them that much closer to needing to take another life. Then the ramp directly ahead of them drops down, and Grace waits only the split second necessary to make sure that there wasn't anyone standing directly in front of them or about to walk into their path before sending the Camaro roaring off of the ferry and onto a road which is much more rural-looking than what they left behind on the other side of the lake.

The control point is only a short distance ahead, less than two miles, and Grace gets them there with all possible speed. There is no mistaking it when it comes into view. A battered taxidermy polar bear posed rearing up on its hind legs stands next to a fifteen foot tall section of pipe painted with spiraling red and white stripes sticking out of the ground. Given the race's vague Christmas theme for the day, it is probably meant to represent the North Pole. Something white, possibly ground up styrofoam, is scattered around the ground to give the appearance of piles of snow in the scorching desert.

Amid the environmentally unfriendly mess, a petite dark haired woman in pale blue tights and matching lipstick sucks on an extra thick candy cane in a suggestive manner and waves at them as they pass. The sun glints off her skin, hair, and clothes like she is completely covered in glitter.

"Officer Aki?" Arthur says incredulously as he realized why she seems so familiar to him. "Grace, stop! We have to go back and talk to her! We can make her tell us what happened to Christopher!"

Before Grace can respond or comply, the car's GPS pings to announce a status update. The location markers for the control point and the cars still on the first leg of the race all disappear from the display and are replaced by new markers indicating the cars who have reached the second leg of the race and the day's finish line.

"Son of a bitch!" Grace exclaims as she slams the car into a handbrake turn and then sends them back down the way they came. "Sorry, Barbie, no time to stop and chat with your boyfriend's girlfriend. If we don't get back to the ferry before it leaves again, we are going to be majorly screwed, maybe fatally."

"What? Why?" Arthur asks as they roar past Aki Frost or whatever wintry holiday character she is supposed to be dressed as for the second time. Arthur thinks maybe his eyes must be playing tricks on him, but he will later swear that he sees Aki suck down the rest of her candy cane and swallow it in a single gulp so as to blow them a kiss with her newly empty hands and unoccupied mouth. The action sends out a swirling puff of glitter into the air as if it were warm breath condensing on a cold day.

"Because the finish line is just a few miles from our starting point," Grace says, "which means a whole lot of sinkholes and closed roads standing between us and it if we try to get there by land. If we don't make it onto the ferry, we'll either need to wait an hour or more for the next one, assuming it arrives on time, or chart out one of those hundred mile or more detours we were talking about earlier and figure how to find more fuel out in the middle of nowhere. Either way, our chances of getting our heads blown up for coming in last go from unlikely to only avoidable if we get really damn lucky."

Fortunately for Grace and Arthur, while they had been racing off to get to the control point, the other vehicles which had been behind them on the ferry exited one at a time and at a much more sedate pace, as they were supposed to, and then the pedestrian passengers had disembarked, and then the small number of vehicles which had been waiting to make the trip to the east side of the lake began boarding the ferry, also slowly and one at a time, so that Grace's problem upon arriving back at the ferry landing is less a matter of racing to get the car onboard before they can raise the entrance ramp and more a matter of barley stopping in time to keep from running into the back end of the car ahead of them in line.

The people directing the boarding give Grace dirty looks for the barely controlled nature of her arrival, or maybe it's for the pair's strange outfits and the loud Christmas carols blasting from the car's speakers, but they allow her to buy a ticket and drive onto the ferry without a fight, which is honestly better than she expects.

Soon the ferry is heading east again.

Since Grace and Arthur have a better idea of what to expect from the trip this time, they feel secure enough to get out of the car and watch at least part of the lake crossing from the upper deck of the boat. Someone has written, "Beware of Kraken," with black marker on a piece of cardboard and tied it to the railing with twine. There are wavy lines drawn radiating up toward the text from both of the lower corners of the makeshift sign, probably meant to represent tentacles. Grace rolls her eyes at the sign. Then, before Arthur can protest, she pulls it off and throws it away into the lake.

"I should give you a ticket for littering," Arthur says, only half joking.

"You're out of your jurisdiction," Grace counters. "Besides," she adds playfully, "think of it like I was undoing someone else's vandalism of the boat. From that point of view, this is the most civic minded you've ever seen me."

"Even if you're right, that still wouldn't cancel out the littering," Arthur says, but he lets the matter drop in favor of enjoying the moment.

With a few minutes to relax, the lake and the surrounding mountains are almost pretty in a desolate sort of way. The air is cooler out on the lake than it was on land, and while the water smells a little funny, it isn't as bad as he imagines it might have been. The sun is beginning to sink behind those mountains, not out of sight yet, but at a low enough angle to allow strange lights shining up from beneath the surface of the water to be visible where they would have been lost in the glare with the sun higher in the sky. It looks like a whole extra neighborhood of Salt Lake City down there. At first it appears to just be some kind of unusual natural phenomenon, but then there's the sound of a splash like something large being dropped off the boat, followed by another splash, and then another and another.

Arthur and Grace rush too the other side of the ferry and lean over the railing to see what's happening. Down on the lower deck of the boat, part of the railing has been swung open like a gate, and people are stepping through the opening one after another and dropping into the water. Some are dressed as business men and women. Some appear to be school children. Some carry bags full of groceries. They all drop into the water and immediately sink out of sight. There is a second opening a few yards further along the railing, and this one has a ladder allowing people to climb up and onto the boat.

"So they dredged out the lake to make it deeper and then set up a ferry so people can come out for a quick afternoon swim while fully clothed?" Grace muses aloud as she turns away to go back to watching the sunset. "It's not the stupidest thing to spend money on that I've ever heard of, but it isn't the smartest either."

"Uh, Grace," Arthur says, still watching the activity below, "none of the people getting onboard look like the same ones who jumped off."

"I know that look on your face, Barbie, and don't you dare do it," Grace warns him.

"Do what?"

"Don't jump in to try to save everyone."

"Why not?" Arthur says, scowling and tightening his grip on the railing, looking like he might launch himself over it at any moment.

"Because nobody looks like they want to be saved," she says. "Hell, the way people are happily climbing up from somewhere, even if it isn't the same people, makes it look like maybe there isn't anything they need saving from. And in case you haven't noticed, everyone getting on and off here has that fishy look we talked about earlier." She grabs hold of his leather harness and begins pulling him away from the railing. At least the stupid thing has proved to be good for something. Arthur reluctantly lets go of the railing and allows Grace to guide him back to where they had originally been standing. "What are you going to do, go bother them for being fish people?"

"I don't know of any laws against being a fish person," Arthur says cautiously. "If they're just being law abiding citizens, we might as well live and let live."

"Exactly."

"This wasn't the kind of thing I expected you to have strong opinions about, Grace," Arthur says.

"Call me selfish, Barbie," Grace says with a shrug, "but while you dream of going a day without killing anyone, I dream of going a day without getting random fluids sprayed all over me."

Arthur bites back a laugh. "I would have thought those two dreams were more or less the same thing, given how you fuel your car."

"I don't like having blood all over me, but at least it's a known quantity," Grace says. "Meanwhile, there's no telling what kind of stuff is in that lake water. Judging by the smell, it can't be anything good."

This time Arthur doesn't bother trying to hold back his laughter. "As far as I can tell," he says, "it's mostly salt and a few fish peop—gyah!" He cuts himself off with a yell as he suddenly pitches face first onto the deck.

"What the hell, Barbie?" Grace asks, reaching down to help him back to his feet, but his hand is yanked out of reach before she can grab it, even as he is desperately trying to claw his way toward her.

"Something's got me," Arthur shouts, and sure enough Grace can see something long and thick and red and vaguely translucent coiling around his leg, with several more feeling their way up and over the edge of the deck to join the first.

Grace lunges forward. This time she is able to grab Arthur's hands, but her strength is no match for the long twisting bands of pure muscle twining around her partner. She tries slashing at the tentacles with her gearshift knife, but while she is able to draw thin lines of strangely iridescent blood, the wounds she inflicts don't seem to be much worse than paper cuts for the creature.

Arthur manages to catch himself on the railing as the tentacles try to drag him under it and off the ferry, but even his amazing forearms aren't enough to do more than keep him from going all the way over as more tentacles swarm up his body, probing around as if looking for weaknesses or points of entry. One slithers under his shirt. Another pushes its way into his mouth, cutting off his calls for help. It probably would have started going down his throat if yet another tentacle wasn't inadvertently impeding the way by wrapping itself around Arthur's throat. Arthur screams silently into the living gag blocking his mouth, and his face starts turning purple.

Grace tries to pry the tentacles off of him, but then something is taking hold of her too. At first she thinks it's more tentacles, but then she realizes that it's human hands as several people grabbing her and dragging her away from Arthur. She tries to fight them off, but there are too many.

Then she hears someone shout, "Get the fuck off my boat," followed by a sizzling zap, and she looks up to see a stocky woman wearing the ferry company's uniform and stabbing at the tentacles with a cattle prod. There is another sizzling zap and a visible arc of electricity each time she stabs at a tentacle. After the fifth or sixth such stab there is an earsplitting inhuman screech from somewhere down below them in the water, and all the tentacles release Arthur.

For a moment, it looks like the fight is over, but instead of retreating into the water, the tentacles wrap around the railing and haul the main bulk of the beast up to eye level with them so it can stare at them with eyes the size of basketballs as it roars rotten fish scented breath at them with all three of its mouths.

"That doesn't look like you getting the fuck off my boat," the ferry employee roars back as she strides forward and stabs the monster in one of its giant eyes with the cattle prod.

The monster's screeching jumps in pitch by at least four octaves as the cattle prod makes contact with yet another sizzling zap. All the tentacles loosen their grip on the railings, and then the beast launches itself back into the water, letting loose a gush of suspiciously stringy and lumpy dark blue fluid which coats everyone in the area as it goes.

"Next time, I'm keeping my damn mouth shut," Grace mutters as she tries to shake off the worst of the ink. God, she hopes it's only ink and not monster jizz.

"Next time," says the woman with the cattle prod, "you should pay attention to the damn warning signs." Then she looks around and sees that the railings are all devoid of signs. "Son of a bitch," she says to the whole world in general. "It's bad enough that tourists keep stealing the warning signs for souvenirs, but now they're taking the temporary cardboard replacement ones too? What is wrong with people?

Arthur wisely says nothing as he drags himself back to the relative safety of the center of the deck, far from any of the railings.

"More gods damned paperwork for me, fucking sign requisition forms, fucking incident reports…," the woman mutters as she stalks away back to wherever she came from, leaving a trail of dark blue footprints as she goes.

By then, the ferry is almost back to the eastern shore of the lake, which means it's time for Grace and Arthur to get back in the car again and prepare to disembark. After their encounter with the kraken, the Christmas music is somehow even more annoying than it was before. They find their way through the city streets easily enough and cross the finish line with little fanfare, a nicely unremarkable arrival in the middle of a very spread out pack.

The Christmas music cut off mid-jingle as soon as the Camaro crossed the finish line. The relative silence is pure bliss.

Between the finish line and the tents set up to act as private garages for the racers, there is a lone fifty five gallon metal drum with

^  
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Insert  
Christmas  
Cheer Here  


sloppily painted on the side of it and a good sized fire burning inside.

Grace and Arthur are only too happy to throw their unwanted fashion accessories into the fire as they pass the barrel. The flames turn strange colors when they throw the pieces in. Maybe it's the kraken ink. Maybe it's whatever toxic chemicals Heart manufactured the original items out of. Grace can't really bring herself to care either way, because the race is over for the day, and so is Heart's attempt at making them celebrate Christmas in ~~July~~ June, but Grace knows that the real excitement of the night and the joy of being reunited with her sister is just beginning.

"Merry Christmas to me," she whispers as she heads off for a quick cleanup so Karma won't be completely horrified by how Grace looks when she comes to get her. She can hardly wait.

**The End**


End file.
